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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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when found on half-obliterated coins and battered armour . But whoever shall employ any artifice to decay pictures , in order to realize these beauties , will soon be reminded that we keep costly Picture Galleries and National Museums , in which to preserve valuable remains of the Fine Arts ; and despite our theory that " Statues moulder into worth , " and that pictures put off the " corruptible" to put on " incorruption , " we keep the day of supreme perfection as far distant as we are able . Hogarth , being much in the company of cognoscenti , and hearing them continually aver that the works of the old painters were much indebted for the charms which they possessed to the mellowing influence of time , took an opportunity to venture a contrary opinion , asserting that " pictures only grew black and worse by age . " Walpole , commenting upon this , sides with the collectors , saying , that Hogarth could not " distinguish in # hat degree the proposition might be true or false . " Doubtless , Hogarth intended his words for those who , in his time , were affecting such unqualified admiration of rust and dirt . The painter would have admitted that colours do gradually soften in the drying ; but this natural softening is a very different effect to that which is produced by a horn-like incrustation spread equally over the whole surface of the picture . It may be said with confidence , that the charms of pictures , having any pretensions to fine colouring , cannot be enhanced by this over-rated * varnish of time ; " especially those subjects which partake of a " gay and festive" character , of which the productions of Rubens and Watteau furnish examples . The annoyance which the delicate fantastic ladies of the Frenchman would have felt at its presence on their sparkling robes of silk and satin , is precisely what the gazer should feel when it interferes with his enjoyment of the pictures of this charming court painter ; and the same may be said of the incrustation , when it hides from us the ruddy , glowing objects depicted by the luscious pencil of the great Fleming . It has been said of another painter ' s colours , whose pictures , from the intense religious sentiment they possess , are so well suited to the cloister , " That it would seem as if he could have dipped his pencil in the hues of some serenest and star-shining twilight : " and let it be urged , that colours so pure and refined as to merit this distinctive eulogy , little need the addition of a " golden" glaze . The great preponderance of brown colour which we observe on the pictures of Rembrandt , and the yellow or gold cast on the works of Titian , have resulted from causes in no way originating with those painters . Few master ' s productions are seen to worse advantage than Titian ' s , and that by reason of the very effects which are said to mellow and improve them . In illustration of this we may cite an example offered by the present writer in a recent letter to the Athenceum . A picture by one of Titian ' s scholars ( which came under our notice ) furnished a striking illustration of time-mellowing . We take the lawn robe of a pope from the precise and delicate pencil of Bordone , with a century ' s dirt upon it . It is not like lawn , but like sackcloth . Its innumerable small folds and indentations ; its chaste , lily-like whiteness , and violet-hued shadowings , are all buried and lost . Pope Paul has no longer the fiery eye of the serpent . The emerald stone on the shrivelled finger is no longer lustrous . The clean , elaborate grey beard is a fiction ; the truth of the carnations a matter of faith ; and the ample cape of crimson velvet has sunk into a coarse cloth of sober brown . Granting to admirers of richly-toned pictures that old oils and varnishes sometimes produce pleasing effects in parts of the foregrounds in sunny pictures , yet the impropriety of preserving them , even on such portions , cannot be doubted , when we reflect that neither Claude nor Cuyp , nor any painter , is to be justly credited with the creation of beautiea which are the result of chance ; for chance never formed part in any great artist's calculation of effects . Reflection brings us to believe that the slightest . film on a fine picture is an undoubted evil . Every good picture , no matter what the subject—whether figures or landscape , or both combined—suffers more
or less in proportion to the extent of its obscuration . An idea ol distances , and the appearances of remote objects , can only be realized by a skilful management of air tints . The most extreme distances are rendered with nil the freshness and variety of nature by some modern , painters , who rival , and even excel , the old landscape painters , in the management of aerial effects . Truth and science are us much obscured in a picture by the corruption of these tints as they would be in linear perspective by the perversion of the lines . The horn-like glazing of old varnish and oilB must needs defile all the refinements which constitute a fine landscape . Nor is the hateful incrustation leas hurtful in other portion * of the picture . Its pernicious influence is alike traceable on the boldest parts of near objects . The " purple tinge which the mountain assumes as it recedes or approaches ; the grey moss upon the ruin ; the variegated greens and mellow browns of foliage ; in short , the colours in every part of nature , " suffer alike from the inuelijuhnired " varnish of time . " In historical pictures , the nicer points , winch nre the evidence of mastery , arc alike involved . The variouH distinctions of colour in uge and in sex , " the " bloom of youth and the wan cheek of sickness , " are not spared . The " golden" compound is permitted to reduce cadi and all into one level tone ; and in deference to a taste no unsatisfactorily constituted us that to which we have directed our remarks , halt the fiuo pictures in Europe are allowed to go on deteriorating and decaying . It is Heldom the cane that serious uttuution m paid to great works ot art , I
with the view to preservation , until their rum stares the prepossessed connoisseur in the face . Any one who has devoted years of investigation to this subject , will readily admit that more old pictures are disfigured by ill-executed and unnecessary repairs and re-painting , than by any other means . The ablest painters are incapable of accomplishing any good by re-painting . The best they can do will be worthless , when compared with the merest wreck or faintest shadow of the original master . It ought ever to be borne in mind ,
that old pictures which are past cleaning , may yet be invaluable examples of design and composition , by virtue of which the reputation of the author may be perpetuated centuries after the tints are faded and forgotten . Hence it is criminal to cover up the ruin . The distinct characteristics of a master painter , if unmolested , never wholly disappear until decay separates the canvas thread by thread ; but the brush of the presumptuous regenerator confounds all at one sweep , and substitutes a fiction for a reality—a modern falsehood for an ancient truth .
We have thus endeavoured to dismiss the idea that the works of the Old Painters do not need the appliances of art to preserve them , and that we are free to expound such rules for the guidance of the Restorer as experience has taught , and reflection confirmed .
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LITTLE BOY BLUE . I lay in the rushes , Where summer light fell On the trees and the bushes That bordered the well . All the flowers were gleaming In crimson and gold , And the sunlight lay dreaming On meadow and wold . But the bud and the chalice Are fading away , From the roses' red palace Step Genie and Fay . Step from golden pavilion In blossoming bowers , From hall of vermilion , The souls of the flowers . They wreathe their wild dances , They glide and they spring ; Each recedes , each advances , They laugh and they sing . But with blushes and flushes , One sounds on a horn , And more green grow the rushes , More yellow the corn . But she sees , she befriends him , She smiles on the boy ; She calls him , she lends him That delicate toy . And the Child loves and praises Its mystical strain , And Age feels the daisies . Bloom round him again . M .
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VIVIAN AMONG THE FLOODS . How different from " Vivian among tho buds , " once p ictured -to yon * mind ' s eve in theno columns ! I Afferent , yet the same ; -externally JMntur * then whs smiling , loving , hoping , budding , and 1 looked with happy eyes upon her fair and happy face , and wrote , an tho birds sang , because I d nothing else to do . " Nature was in another inood those past dayn , lottiring , weeping , wailing , Bobbing . Tho heavy rain whipped the windows , and ran like toftrs adown tho elieok of outraged childhood ; the triad moaned with woird pain ; the fields were swamim 5 the roads w < tt © riv » rft . Did I " sympathize" with . Nature P Not I . Tho moult dulnec « of the landscape only gave a sharper edgo to the hospitable enjoyment with ** lour walls . Wo were au uproarious party ! Wit , and wisdom , nftifl * al& « wisdom , and learning , and . Beauty , and sympathy , and cigar * , madie tluft melancholy landncape but the background to our brightneBB * * W « t&Hwdl
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January 15 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 69
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PRESS-ORDERS TO THEATRES , &c . We have resolved , in common with the most respected of our contemporaries , to discontinue the use of the press-privilege of writing Orders of Admission to the Theatres and other places of public amusement . Henceforth no such Orders will be issued from this Office to any person , whether connected with the Lkadkk or not . XRADUlt Owice , 15 th January , IHfi . ' ? .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 15, 1853, page 69, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1969/page/21/
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